“Please let this truth serve to represent,” U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in his social media message this week, warning that if the hostages are not released, “[t]hose responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America.”
This challenge represents not only a practical shift but also a conceptual one. Trump’s use of the word “truth” enforces this change in the dynamic.
Trump’s threat came after Hamas released a video of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander in captivity. Trump puts the blame for the lives and deaths of the 100 human beings still held hostage by Hamas where it belongs—on the terrorists responsible for the Oct. 7 atrocities and aftermath.
As he said in his statement, Trump is astonished, and rightly so, that there has been so much talk and outrage, but no decisive action.
The word “truth,” in the antisemitic mire that has flooded the world since Oct. 7, has erased the distinction between murderers and victims. It has filled the world with historical and political filth and maddened crowds. The reversal of truth, in which a horde of thousands of murderers systematically tore apart innocent families, one by one, has transformed into hatred for Jews and a threat to the West.
Now, with Trump’s decisive stance, a flag has been raised. Meanwhile, a governing group appears to be forming to confront not only the violence of Hamas but also Iran’s proxies. Hamas is finally being recognized for what it is: the sole culprit. On one side, there is good, Israel and its hostages, and on the other side, evil—Hamas and its backers.
This perspective has been lost since Oct. 7, even within Israel. The slogan “Bring them home” is aimed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, often implying that the greater responsibility lies not with Hamas but with the Israeli leader. Street protests in Israel are muddled by political hatred that accuses Netanyahu of refusing a ceasefire to maintain his government, a notion that has been disproven by the truce with Lebanon.
These protests are manna for Hamas, which continually raised the stakes for an agreement—a negotiation the terror group never truly intended to finalize unless it meant the survival of its Gaza regime.
Hamas, as confirmed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Joe Biden themselves, has rejected all agreements to which Israel was willing to agree. Instead, they have continued to brutally torment and execute the hostages. Throughout this last year, Hamas has never ceased to incite conflict and anguish across Israel.
Now, as Trump is saying, the time for empty words is over. The status quo must be changed and not with useless gifts or humanitarian aid that is hijacked by terrorists or slandering Israel or political attacks that strengthen the enemy while Israel fights an essential war as humanely as possible despite the use of human shields.
As of now, the slogan is no longer “Bring them home,” but rather, “Let my people go.”
